Quick question about scandisk/chkdsk in Windows 2000/XP...

[Drakula]

Ok, I ran a search and did not really find any related topics, could be that I searched the wrong keywords, so I decided to post a new topic.

Anyway, onto the question. I am just wondering how well does chkdsk in Windows 2000/XP do comparing to the scandisk in Windows 95/98/ME when scanning FAT32 drives? Because I was transferring some files from a desktop drive to a removable drive that I got a while back and some weird error occurred and system reboots. I ran the chkdsk using the right click->disk properties->error-checking, and it returns as no error found. I tried to run the chkdsk using command prompt but it would not run. I know both are the same, just want to make sure because the command prompt chkdsk would return some status after scanning. So, could I trust the scanned result of chkdsk?

I had bad experience with Windows 2000 and FAT32 drive before and this is first time in after the bad experience happened that I am using an NT based Windows with FAT32 drive.

The Windows I was using was Windows XP and the removable drive was pre-formatted as FAT32, so I decide leave the drive alone and not to reformat.

Any comments or opinions or experience are welcome.

Also, does anyone know good *free* scanning tool besides chkdsk from Windows 2000/XP? Emphasize on free.

Thanks.

Edit: Oh right, I forgot to mention, the removable drive is an USB drive, the USB controller card is using an NEC chip, and the Windows XP was running SP2 with latest update. Not sure if these informations are important or not.

 

[Ze]

Well, I've been using scandisk and chkdsk since the days of DOS. In my experience the chkdsk reports and runs pretty well.

That's strange though that you can't run chkdsk from the command prompt. Maybe your system variables aren't set correctly.
Try typing chkdsk in C:\windows\system32

 

[Drakula]

Yeah, you know, I am not exactly sure why too. When I tried the chkdsk in command prompt, it kept wanting me to unmount the USB drive for some reason. I cannot figure out why. All I know is that I cannot run the chkdsk in command prompt as oppose to the chkdsk in Windows.:roll: I will try your suggestion later though. Thanks.